Five days into the Vancouver Winter Games, Switzerland is winning—in a manner of speaking. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Swiss had won three gold medals, the most of any country. Now, those are the only three medals Switzerland had won—the U.S. led the overall count with eight—but there’s a case to be made that the gold count is what should matter most.

In the U.S., fans tend to care most about the overall medal count; the Journal’s own medal table is arranged that way. But that’s hardly a universal opinion. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, China was singularly focused on winning the gold count, which it did by a 51-36 margin over the U.S. It mattered not that the U.S. won the overall count by 10, padding its total with silvers and bronzes.

Those medals still have a purpose, of course. If there’s a tie atop the gold-medal standings, the other colors would make a fine tiebreaker.

Comments (2 of 2)

a bit misleading beginning of the article "The country that gave the world Martina Hingis"....Martina Hingis was born and raised in Slovakia

7:30 pm February 16, 2010

Delon Levi wrote:

Interesting analysis, but both are incomplete. There is value in each medal, and that value should be accounted. Clearly gold, silver, and bronze medals don't have equal value, so overall medal count is misleading. And clearly, silver and bronze medals have value, not just gold. Perhaps if we assigned points to each medal we could come up with an overall measure, say: 3-gold, 2-silver, 1-bronze. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, China had 51 gold, 21 silver, 28 bronze => 3*51+2*21+1*28=223 Medal Points, and the USA had 36 gold, 38 silver, 36 bronze => 3*36+2*38+1*36=220 Medal Points. The two teams excelled about the same.

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